Cataclysm LVL 85 and Raid Progression
I didn't cover the US and EU first level 85 characters when they happened 2 days ago, this is mostly because leveling in Cataclysm is fairly easy and the ranking mostly depended on what realms went up first.

However, it's pretty clear that now that we have near-final rankings for US and EU realms (thanks to WoWProgress), one character leveled much faster than the others: Forscience played by the lovely Athene. He posted a short video to explain how he did it, see below.

The rest of the rankings is available below, I'm not going to say world first or anything because I know people will hate me, I'll just let you discuss it in comments.

Here you will find a list of hotfixes that address various issues related to the release of patch 4.0.3a and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. While many have already been deployed on all realms, some may not be implemented until the next time your realm is restarted. We will continue to update this thread in the days ahead as additional hotfixes are applied.

December 8General

Guilds no longer receive guild experience when earning guild achievements. You can read more about this on our forums.

If a guild maxed their experience gains for the day, subsequent tallying of individual members’ weekly and total experience gained was not always properly being saved and stored. This has been corrected.

The achievements Heroic: Lost City of the Tol'vir Guild Run, Heroic: Shadowfang Keep Guild Run, and Baradin Hold Guild Run are now properly awarded and show up in the Guild Achievement window.

Corla will now always drop an item and the Red Winter Hat does not replace her regular loot drop. It's because she cares.

Specific mounts, when used in Eastern Kingdoms, were not receiving the appropriate movement speed modifiers between land and ground. This has been corrected.

Players can enter and finish Wintergrasp or Tol Barad even if no players from the opposing faction are queued.

Players are now able to acquire "A Winter Veil Gift" for 2010 if they had completed "A Winter Veil Gift" in 2009.

Dungeons & Raids

Several items which drop from bosses in Cataclysm five-player dungeons have been correctly reclassified so that the intended classes can roll Need when in a Looking For Dungeon group.

Players are again provided a spectral flying mount while in spirit form if killed in Ahn'Qiraj: The Fallen Temple.

The Tamed Tol'vir Prowlers in Lost City of the Tol'vir award much less experience when killed.

Players can now use Wind Tunnels while in combat, returning them to Siamat's platform in Lost City of the Tol'vir.

Deep Murloc Drudges in Throne of the Tides no longer grant experience when killed.

Items

Players are no longer able to refund an alternate-cost item if they level up during its refund timer.

Stormrider's Cover was requiring an incorrect class token to purchase from vendors. This has been fixed. Until a patch is applied, the Stormrider's Cover will still list a Crown of the Forlorn Protector being a required currency, however, it can be correctly purchased with a Crown of the Forlorn Vanquisher.

The Filet Knife quest reward from "Something Edible" in Vashj'ir is a caster weapon and now has spell power. So sensible!

The on-use effect from Tosselwrench's Shrinker is no longer counting as an elixir buff. Additionally, no extra ranged attack power or other stats are granted.

Players can no longer get stuck in a phase after watching the cutscene that triggers upon completion of quests "Missing Pieces" and "Reduced Productivity".

Bloodsnarl Scavengers killed by players with the aid of Salhet's Lions during the quest "Salhet the Tactician" will not provide experience. If you want something done, sometimes you just have to do it yourself.

Creatures in Neferset City needed for the quest "Bleeding the Enemy" now respawn more quickly.

Players will now correctly switch phases after turning in the quest "Gobbles!"

Vashj'ir

Players will now be in the correct phase with Wavespeaker Valoren after completing the quest "Communing with the Ancient". Seeing ghost question marks on the mini-map is no fun for anyone.

The Deepfin Scrounger Anchor Attack! now only roots players for 5 seconds, down from 20 seconds.

The damage of the Devious Great-Eel is now correctly reduced if a player does not immediately engage the eel in combat after the Eel-Splosive Device is triggered while on the quest "Here Fishie Fishie 2: Eel-Egg-Trick Boogaloo" (Horde) or "The Brothers Digsong 2: Eel-Egg-Trick Boogaloo" (Alliance).

Smuggler's Scar now has two guard posts, up from one, and Deepmist Grotto has one guard post, up from none. In addition, Cavern Crawlers are now immune to crowd control effects. Even ganking should have its limits.

Players are no longer able to retain the 450% swim speed increase from the Abyssal Seahorse through devious, devious means.

Earthmender Duarn's yell is now only visible to the player interacting with him for the quest "Making Contact".

Overseer Idra'kess's yell can now only be seen if a player is within range of him.

Warlocks will now receive an "Immune" error when casting Enslave Demon on Impsy in Felwood.

"Nothing Left for You Here" can now still be completed if the player has already completed "My Time Has Passed" in Stonetalon Mountains.

"We're Here to Do One Thing, Maybe Two..." can now be completed by simply going to Saurboz in Stonetalon Mountains and is not affected by the wagon.

Outland

Sha'tar Vindicators are level 65 now, down from 85, and no longer tearing through Auchenai Doomsayers in Terokkar Forest needed for the quest "Evil Draws Near".

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Running Wild
Running Wild behaves essentially like a mount, and, while cosmetically different, it carries the same limitations. I don't think further improvements to the ability are currently on the table.

Guild Level 2
Level 2 is possible.

The cap unlocks every night around 3am. The game released at midnight on Monday, giving guilds approximately three hours to hit cap, which many bigger or more active guilds were able to. So effectively this is Day 3 on the guild progression calendar, even though the first day was only three hours long. (Source)

Any chance we'll see new servers anytime soon?
We'll continue evaluating overall population as we monitor how these transfers progress. My personal guess is no, not before the new year, but that's a complete guess. We'll see how these go. (Source)

US - Free Character Moves Available

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker)

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is live and many players are coming back to the game, while others are just really pumped to get in and experience the new content. To address the population influx, we're providing some players with Free Character Moves. If you're on one of the source realms listed below, you can move your characters to the designated destination realm and avoid the queues -- for free!

By initiating one of these transfers you will be moving your character to a new realm and home. This is a one-time, one-way move. You will need to use the paid transfer service to move your character elsewhere.

Please be aware that due to the unpredictable nature of free transfers we may close down any Free Character Moves at any time and without warning if the target realm becomes full. If you plan to move with friends or your guild, we suggest that you coordinate the effort to reduce the chance of any stragglers being left behind.

Early closures aside, the Free Character Moves will end on December 22.

Begin a Free Character Move - Please refer to the FAQ, which details what is or isn't allowed for transferred characters.

As many of you have already discovered, one of the focal points of the new World of Warcraft community site is, well...you! Not only do you have a variety of controls at your fingertips, but you're now represented by unique 3D renders of your in-game characters. These new character images will appear in your Armory profile, in the character card once you're logged in, and whenever you post a comment or reply.

A number of players have been asking for more information about these 3D renders, so we've put together an FAQ to explain how they work and how they're created.

Q. How are the character images featured on the new community site generated?A. We created an image rendering platform (which we'll refer to as a static renderer) that uses game data to render 3D images of your character.

Q. How many images are rendered for a given character?A. We currently render four different images:

An Armory profile image

An Armory inset image

An avatar image

And a character card image

Q. When are these images rendered?A. Whenever a character logs out of the game, a request is automatically sent to the static renderer for a new set of website images. These requests are processed in the order they are received and will typically be completed within 3 to 5 minutes. During peak gaming hours, however, when character populations can change rapidly, it may take longer for your character images to update and appear on the community site.

Q. Why doesn’t my character show the same pose that I have set for the old Armory?A. Currently, we're only rendering characters in preset poses. Following the final launch of the Armory, though, we're considering allowing characters to set positions and animations through Adobe® Flash® or a similar site component. We'll provide more information as the development process continues.

Q. Why are my item enchant effects not displaying?A. The image rendering platform does not currently support particle effects, so this may cause some minor inconsistencies between how your character appears in-game and on the community site -- including the display of item enchant effects.

Q. My avatar is just a plain silhouette? What gives?A. If your character avatar is displaying as a generic silhouette, this typically means one of two things:

Your selected character is under level 10.

You have not recently played the selected character.

If your character is above level 9, be sure to log into the character and then back out. This should queue a request for the static renderer and allow your character images to update appropriately.

Q. Okay. I logged into my character and then back out, but neither my profile image nor my avatar has updated. What now?A. If you logged out during peak gaming hours, keep in mind that it may take a while for your new image to render. Check back in few hours and your character images should be refreshed.

Q. What if I want to use a bank alt or some other character that isn't level 10 yet? Am I stuck with the silhouette?A. If a character is under level 10, it will only receive a default silhouette avatar to be used on the forums as well as in page comments. Consider this a motivation to level that character, or an opportunity to remain dark and mysterious.

Q. Why does my death knight have a silhouette of a human? My death knight isn't human.A. Typically, default silhouettes are based off of race, not class. Death knights are a special case, however, as we provide their avatars a custom class background. Because of this, until an image is rendered for a death knight, the death knight silhouette will default to human.

Q. What if I want a special pose, item, or background to appear in my character's image. Is that possible?A. We're unable facilitate one-off requests or custom renders. You can still customize how your character appears on the community site by using things like holiday items and lower-level quest rewards, however. Get creative -- you may be surprised at the results!

Q. What if there appears to be something wrong with my character images?A. If you believe you've encountered a possible issue with the website, you can submit a report in the Website Bug Report forum. Before posting, though, we ask that you please use the integrated search function located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen to check to see if your issue has already been reported by another player.

Q. Where I can leave feedback?A. If you would like to provide feedback on the website or recommend additional features and/or functionality, please visit the Website Features Request forum. Thanks!

Great job on the world first 85 Athene! Anyone complaining that he didn't level "properly" because he didn't "see the content" is a bit ridiculous. He saw the content because he played beta, we all saw the content, he's going to see the content on his alt, and his second alt, and his third alt, and his fourth fifth sixth seventh and eighth alt. Leveling never changes, he's not missing out on anything and neither would you if you decide to level with friends to 85 in 5 hours by mob tagging. You don't get world firsts by taking your time to smell the roses, you get world first through efficiency, no more and no less.

I'm not sure the wowprogress rankings for who hits 85 is correct. For example, if you look at US-Cenarius, the number one player listed is NOT who got server first 85. He was server first druid, but not server first over all. You can check his achievements to verify (according to wowprogress, Drans - but no server first 85 FoS as you can see.) The first place was a paladin - I don't remember the name actually but it doesn't show up on wowprogress at all.

Incorrect, I saw the guy get server first achieve because i was online at the time. I'm not saying some BS like "oh he was actually first but didn't get achieve" I'm saying, drans did not get server first achieve, someone else did, but wowprogress is reporting it incorrectly.

Athene admits to "tagging" which got him banned IIRC last time and is, in my opinion, a poor way of claiming something like this. Sure it may not technically be against the rules, but it really should be.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted to see him being so humble as to admit it was due to the help of so many people that he achieved what he did.

Furthermore, with the ~9 hour advantage, I personally feel it might have been unfair. Just my 2c though.

Incorrect, I saw the guy get server first achieve because i was online at the time. I'm not saying some BS like "oh he was actually first but didn't get achieve" I'm saying, drans did not get server first achieve, someone else did, but wowprogress is reporting it incorrectly.

Athene admits to "tagging" which got him banned IIRC last time and is, in my opinion, a poor way of claiming something like this. Sure it may not technically be against the rules, but it really should be.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted to see him being so humble as to admit it was due to the help of so many people that he achieved what he did.

Furthermore, with the ~9 hour advantage, I personally feel it might have been unfair. Just my 2c though.

What got him banned last time was the specifc way he was tagging - inside an instance he dropped group tagged the mobs, then get reinvited. the group helps him kill the group but he got full exp. that specific method is what blizz called an exploit